RCAHMS THREATENED BUILDINGS SURVEY 2008
Event ID 884635
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type RCAHMS THREATENED BUILDINGS SURVEY 2008
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/884635
Aystree was designed in 1093 by Charles Ower and Charles Soutar of Dundee for Colonel T H Smith. Although the drawings are signed by both architects Sonya MacAngus, in her unpublished thesis for St Andrews University 'William Gillespie Lamond and Charles G Soutar, Free Style Architecture in Dundee, circa 1900-1910', attributes the design stylistically to Soutar.
The house retains its extremely high quality fixtures and fittings throughout the principal rooms. They all appear to have been supplied by Liberty of London and are particularly rare in Scotland. These include the stamped lock plates in the dining room, library and hall, and a number of Liberty design decorative friezes throughout. The fittings in the dining room are of particular note as an example of the best quality Liberty style with a fitted sideboard, elaborate panelling and inglenook fireplace with beaten copper fire hood. A door off the dining room leads to the conservatory which although in a poor state retains much of its original structure. It was supplied by Mackenzie and Moncur and illustrated in their catalogue held at RCAHMS. The library retains all its fitted bookcases and although the drawing room has had a screen fitted across it, it retains an elaborate inglenook fireplace and white lacquered panelling with silk panels. Although the kitchen has been radically altered two pantries with fitted cupboards survive along with a ceramic shelved larder. The cellar retains part of the original boiler and one of the individual zinc coalbunkers from when the house was in multiple occupation. The first floor bedrooms remain largely unaltered and in the attic there is the original billiard room and what appears to have been a playroom that has since been subdivided.
Information from RCAHMS (STG), 2008
